“Smokey Joe’s Cafe” Opened July 22, 2018 at Stage 42, 422 West 42nd Street

Emma Degerstedt and ensemble
photo credit: Joan Marcus

It’s not that I wasn’t listening to the radio during the 1950’s and 1960’s, but I just didn’t think that such songs as “Baby Baby,” “Poison Ivy,” “Yakety Yak,” and “Shoppin’ for Clothes” were connected to composers. Now I know that. But I actually didn’t know they were until 1975 when I saw the first Broadway production of  “Smokey Joe’s Cafe.” After close to twenty-five years, a welcome revival is back Off Broadway. It is pure pleasure from the opening number to its rousing finale. 

It must be noted that it is nothing more than end-to-end songs and performer following performer(s) being simply sensational and backed by a terrific on-stage band within a spectacular cafe-bar setting designed by genius Beowulf Boritt. Three metal spiral staircases are prominent as are the neon-lit beer signs that call our attention with the huge well-stocked bar. You won’t fail to notice the strategically placed collection of vintage radios. 

Be assured that there is also plenty of room for this terrific ensemble to dance up a virtual cyclone under the expert lighting designed by Jeff Croiter.    

Perhaps because it has no famous (not yet) names to extol, no book, no discernible structure or continuity or point of view, this celebration of songs all by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller is a very unusual kind of entertainment. But it is also more than a valentine to the composing team, as it has the heart of something much bigger, more invigorating and satisfying than many of the more bloated high-tech productions now on Broadway. 

I don’t know that the show’s director/choreographer Joshua Bergasse has done to  give his performers the unstoppable and un-dimishing energy that is maintained during the show but I hope it’s legal. Without let-up, except to change the mood, the performers group and regroup to sing and dance and humorously cavort to practically the entire (???) canon of songs by the successful and prolific team who once provided massive hits for Peggy Lee, the Coasters, Big Mama Thornton and of course, Elvis Presley (“Hound Dog,” “Jailhouse Rock”.)

Admirers of Leiber and Stoller will no doubt feel twinges of nostalgia. Purists may also feel their favorites are a bit compromised by their  reinterpretation or something like that. So what.  Who cares? They all sounded great to these ears and my eyes were treated to watching great performers giving their all to every song whether doing solo or as part of the ensemble.

 The most familiar songs “Kansas City,” “Fools Fall in Love,” and “On Broadway” had the audience in a state of rapture while the lesser (there really aren’t any) ones often commanded cheering....not a bad thing.  When was the last time you saw a musical in which every song in it filled you with joy and made you want more. I guess I should single out each of the thirteen performers and the almost forty numbers in which they stood out...but I’ll mention just a few I felt were most memorable. I’m giving a shout-out to Dwayne Cooper and Dionne D. Figgins for their comical and sultry “Don Juan;” Jelani Remy for making “Jailhouse Rock” an acrobatic show-stopper; zaftig Alysha Umphress emphasizing the “evil” in “Trouble;” Blonde bombshell Emma Degerstedt doing her best to “Teach Me How to Shimmy.”

The dancing throughout was sensational, particularly the sensually interpreted “Spanish Harlem.” A good point to mention the beautiful costumes designed by Alejo Vietti. The moving bandstand put the musicians in the light a few times but they really shone with a dazzling “Dueling Pianos.” Individually the singers, that included Nicole Vanessa Ortiz, Kyle Taylor Parker, and Max Sangerman, also stood again and again as did John Edwards with his dramatically stunning “I Who Have Nothing.”  I’ll conclude saying this is a show that has everything. You need a story? Make one up.

"Half Time" at the Paper Mill Playhouse, Millburn N.J. now through July 1, 2018

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Donna McKechnie  photo: Jerry Dalia
 


How often have we heard someone over sixty years old say, When you become a senior you become invisible? That may be all too true in some circles,but the seniors who audition to dance in the center court in the new musical Half Time are determined to make themselves visible in a most exciting and inspiring way.

Basing their musical on a true event and significantly on Dori Berinstein's documentary about the NETSationals, collaborators Bob Martin and Chad Beguelin (book), Matthew Sklar (music) with lyrics by Nell Benjamin and with Jerry Mitchell serving masterly as director and choreographer have devised a charming and disarming entertainment.

This musical heartwarmingly embraces rather than mocks the marketing gimmick as originally devised by the National Basketball Association to essentially give the spectators a laugh at half-time. Recruiting through auditions an eager team of still agile if also questionably able seniors to learn the physically demanding Hip-Hop routines, the management of the New Jersey Cougars do not have a clue what they are in for when push gets to shove.

The show basically allows the audience to follow the principal players,all seniors, through the process of learning the routines. Think of a geriatric A Chorus Line and you may get a glimmer of the anxieties and the issues that each recruit has to deal with in order to remain a value to the team. Part of the show's pleasure is seeing these geriatrics progress from pathetic to fantastic. Don't think for a minute that casting may have been a handicap. You won't find a slacker in this company of pros.

If you are looking for headliners,there is the oh so slick and suave Andre De Shields as a grieving widower; a hilarious Georgia Engel, whose born-to-rap character channels dual personalities; a sensational Lillias White, as a no-nonsense dancing grandma trying to keep her equilibrium while dealing with her rebellious granddaughter (an excellent Nkeki Obi-Melekwe). There is an exhilarating echo of the original A Chorus Line's Cassie with that role's originator Donna McKechnie, as a privileged, retired suburbanite who once danced in a Broadway show.

Though we are inclined to root from the start in anticipation of a rousing finale, Half Time does occasionally sputter and stall during the first half. It takes a little too much time for the nine principals to get through their obligatory getting-to-know-me posturing. Winning as they are, some are unfortunately stereotyped characters. Rising above this is Nancy Ticotinas a fiery Latina in the Chita Rivera mold who performs a sexy,show-stopping Paso Doble partnered by an also terrific Alexander Aguilar. De Shields is an audience favorite from the start and wins our hearts and also that of the delightful Engel singing and dancing to the musical's most memorable ballad "The Prince of Swing." It is surprising that he is the only male among the women recruits. A totally different type of male-persona would have added more diversity to the mix.

Sklar and Benjamin's bright and bouncy score fulfills its duties without being much more than that. That's with the exception of the above song written by Marvin Hamlisch, whose untimely death upended the original plan for him to compose the entire show.

The projected announcements of the number of days until show time slow the pace down. But kudos to the vivid projections throughout by designer Jason Lee Courson; also to sound designer Randy Hansen who made sure we hear the snappy lyrics.

The rehearsals are filled to the brim with Mitchell's often comically interpreted hip-hop dance vocabulary. For plot, there is a running conflict between Tara the team's coach (Haven Burton) and an NBA executive (Tracy Jai Edwards) over whether the aggressively rehearsed but determined team and their arduous routine should prevail — or be replaced with the old folks riding around in circles on scooters. We can easily guess how that turns out.

For the finale, director Mitchell fills the stage with some youthful dancers who do their best to keep up with the these hip-hopping seniors, as smartly dressed by costume designer Gregg Barnes in haute hip hop. David Rockwell's scenic designs, include the use of mirrors that pay notable homage to A Chorus Line. But it is that eye-filling finale set within a huge stadium replete with bleachers filled with thousands of cheering fans that make us glad the Half Time collaborators saw fit to have that Me-Too spotlight shine down brightly on these incomparable seniors.It's possible we could see this spirited troupe hip-hop their way straight to Broadway.

“Carousel” opened April 12 at the Imperial Theatre, 249 West 45th Street

Jesse Mueller and Joshua Henry
Photo credit: Julieta Cervantes
 

Nothing is going to change the fact that Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II’s “Carousel” is unrelentingly sentimental, occasionally maudlin and even at times corny. But when you futz around too much with this gloriously melodic 73 year-old musical drama you are asking for trouble. In what turns out to be a misbegotten re-envisioning of it directed by Jack O’Brien and choreographed by Justin Peck, the classic musical fails almost irretrievably in its effort to be either an uplifting or wonderfully romantic experience.

As originally adapted from Molnar’s tragically themed “Liliom,” “Carousel” may still be an old fashioned tearjerker. But, it is forever exalted by some of the most gorgeous melodies ever composed for the American musical theater. The disappointments begin early with the show beginning in a starry galaxy far away.....actually a back door to heaven where a platoon of gate-keepers in grey work-outfits hold sway and swing under the supervision of their head honcho/Starkeeper (John Douglas Thompson.)  The Starkeeper appears periodically during the show to shadow the restless carnival barker Billy Bigelow (Joshua Henry) as he goes about his belligerently motivated, ill-fated earthly capers.

Henry, who won Tony nominations for his performances in “Violet” and “The Scottsboro Boys,” is a fine African-American actor with a splendid voice but don’t expect to see more than a perpetually steely meanness expressed or exposed in his portrayal. What disappointed me most about seeing his Billy Bigelow is that he remains characterized without a single visible redeeming trait. I have seen aspects of Billy’s seriously flawed character given more dimension in countless other productions. Most regrettably, I don’t think I’ve ever heard the famous “Soliloquy” reduced to only one emotional level.

Even more seriously remiss from this production is the expected physical chemistry that draws Julie (Jessie Mueller) to him and him to her. Mueller, who won awards and accolades for her performances in “Waitress” and “Beautiful” seems stymied by a role that simply asks her to fall in love for no discernible reason. It can be done.

Then we have to consider the consequences of a stultifying romance in which the recklessly-in-love Julie becomes more than a wimp and a physically abused wife without a spine. Sorely missed is seeing Julie grow from an innocent, infatuated young girl into a woman strengthened but never hardened by tragedy. If the show’s constantly reiterated theme - you always hurt the one you love - is ever present, be assured there is no expectation of anything beyond that even in the well-sung duet “If I Loved You.”

And don’t expect to see that  famed carousel appear, although an approximation in part is created by set designer Santo Loquasto. Loquasto did create ample approximations of the show’s New England seaside setting as did costume designer Ann Roth with her period fashions. Director Jack O’Brien pushes to infuse the musical with moments of joy but they seem like artificial implants. This is a story that should make us smile through our tears, not grit our teeth. Unlike other revivals, a feeling of perfunctory theatrics overshadow what is essentially a delicate fantasy.

In contrast, a-belting-we-will-go Lindsay Mendez is an over-the-top New England catch as Julie’s friend Carrie, One could almost believe that “fish is my favorite perfume” when she sings about her intended “Mr. Snow.” The resounding voice of Alexander Gemignani as the stuffy Enoch Snow helps us remember what a charming if understandably neglected tune is “When the Children Are Asleep.” Opera diva Renee Fleming puts her wind in the sails for “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” The best characterization comes from Margaret Colin as the lusty carnival owner Mrs. Mullin.  

An abundance of robust dancing, as choreographed by Justin Peck, filled overly-extended ballet sequences most of which appeared more as self-serving showcases rather than rising organically out of the story. . . as had been originally conceived by the great Agnes DeMille. Where is “Carousel” without interpretive integrity or emotional honesty? But like the song says, “What’s the Use of Wond’rin?

“Three Tall Women” at the Golden Theatre 252 West 45th Street

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Alison Pill, Glenda Jackson and Laurie Metcalf (Photo: Brigitte Lacombe)

None of the disaffection for  a series of Edward Albee’s plays that followed years of success and great acclaim was deemed relevant when “Three Tall Women” (premiered in Vienna in 1991) eventually opened in the U.S. at the Vineyard Theater in 1994 featuring memorable performances by Myra Carter and Marian Seldes. It re-awakened in us what we already knew: Albee is once again to be acknowledged as one of the best American playwrights of the 20th century with this play winning for him his second Pulitzer Prize.  A terrific Broadway revival, under the direction of Joe Mantello and starring Glenda Jackson, Laurie Metcalf and Alison Pill has opened at the Golden Theatre. It is pure gold and will be a treat for Albee fans and for lovers of great acting.

While there was no denying in 1994 that Albee had grown more alienated and dramatically elusive, notably after writing such celebrated plays as “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe,” “A Delicate Balance,” and “Seascape.” His return to a more easily accessed dramatic form made “Three Tall Women” all the more appreciated. It is commendable for not only being a moving and often humorous re-examination of a very wealthy 92 year-old woman’s life, but for once again having at its core an actress who is in dazzling command of this fascinating and exasperating woman’s fluctuations of moods. The actress is Glenda Jackson who is returning to the New York stage after an absence of 33 years, a stint in the British Parliament, and a return to the London stage in 2016 as King Lear for the Old Vic. Is there any doubt that she is wonderful at making petulance both heart-breaking and funny.

On the verge of death, and distrustful of everyone around her, the woman, identified only as A flexes her memory. Although it is clouded by senility (“I can’t remember what I know”), she ultimately does reflect on her lifetime. Just as her past is filled as much with commonplace and trivial pursuits, it has been punctuated by delightfully risqué adventures. And its fragmented truths are cradled within a resolute honesty. But this production is no monologue.

It also has the support of the also terrific Laurie Metcalf who plays B, A’s 52 year-old home companion and caregiver. Adding the play’s newly burnished luster is the excellent Alison Pill who plays C, a 26 year-old woman from the family-retained law firm who has come to question A about her neglected finances. The wry and compassionate edge that marks Metcalf’s bravura performance is contrasted by the insensitivity demonstrated by Pill as the impatient C.

While the three actresses have distinct roles in Act I, in Act II they each appear as different stages in the life of the same woman who is now deceased and with an estranged son who appears only to stand silently at her bedside. A continues to chronicle moments from her impetuous childhood, her marriage and her later years. As she mentally travels through numerous peccadilloes, she also attempts with candidly expressed sentiments, to exorcise the pain and anger she has harbored in regard to her son. These are assumed to have autobiographical ties to the author. Mantello’s direction appears to measure the play’s haunting nature with a playfulness that never ceases to amaze. Miriam Buether’s set design affixes appropriate affluence, as do Ann Roth’s ultra stylish apparel to a play notably rich with the words and the wonder of the playwright who was just getting his second  wind.   

None of the disaffection for  a series of Edward Albee’s plays that followed years of success and great acclaim was deemed relevant when “Three Tall Women” (premiered in Vienna in 1991) eventually opened in the U.S. at the Vineyard Theater in 1994 featuring memorable performances by Myra Carter and Marian Seldes. It re-awakened in us what we already knew: Albee is once again to be acknowledged as one of the best American playwrights of the 20th century with this play winning for him his second Pulitzer Prize.  A terrific Broadway revival, under the direction of Joe Mantello and starring Glenda Jackson, Laurie Metcalf and Alison Pill has opened at the Golden Theatre. It is pure gold and will be a treat for Albee fans and for lovers of great acting.

While there was no denying in 1994 that Albee had grown more alienated and dramatically elusive, notably after writing such celebrated plays as “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe,” “A Delicate Balance,” and “Seascape.” His return to a more easily accessed dramatic form made “Three Tall Women” all the more appreciated. It is commendable for not only being a moving and often humorous re-examination of a very wealthy 92 year-old woman’s life, but for once again having at its core an actress who is in dazzling command of this fascinating and exasperating woman’s fluctuations of moods. The actress is Glenda Jackson who is returning to the New York stage after an absence of 33 years, a stint in the British Parliament, and a return to the London stage in 2016 as King Lear for the Old Vic. Is there any doubt that she is wonderful at making petulance both heart-breaking and funny.

On the verge of death, and distrustful of everyone around her, the woman, identified only as A flexes her memory. Although it is clouded by senility (“I can’t remember what I know”), she ultimately does reflect on her lifetime. Just as her past is filled as much with commonplace and trivial pursuits, it has been punctuated by delightfully risqué adventures. And its fragmented truths are cradled within a resolute honesty. But this production is no monologue.

It also has the support of the also terrific Laurie Metcalf who plays B, A’s 52 year-old home companion and caregiver. Adding the play’s newly burnished luster is the excellent Alison Pill who plays C, a 26 year-old woman from the family-retained law firm who has come to question A about her neglected finances. The wry and compassionate edge that marks Metcalf’s bravura performance is contrasted by the insensitivity demonstrated by Pill as the impatient C.

While the three actresses have distinct roles in Act I, in Act II they each appear as different stages in the life of the same woman who is now deceased and with an estranged son who appears only to stand silently at her bedside. A continues to chronicle moments from her impetuous childhood, her marriage and her later years. As she mentally travels through numerous peccadilloes, she also attempts with candidly expressed sentiments, to exorcise the pain and anger she has harbored in regard to her son. 

These are assumed to have autobiographical ties to the author. Mantello’s direction appears to measure the play’s haunting nature with a playfulness that never ceases to amaze. Miriam Buether’s set design affixes appropriate affluence, as do Ann Roth’s ultra stylish apparel to a play notably rich with the words and the wonder of the playwright who was just getting his second  wind.   

“Pygmalion” at the Sheen Center (15 Bleeker Street) through April 22, 2018

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Eric Tucker and Vaishnavi Sharma

Remember “Pygmalion”? It’s “My Fair Lady” without the Ascot Gavotte. If you share the English-speaking world’s fondness for George Bernard Shaw’s clever and witty version of the mythology, you will admit that his most adored comedy more than holds its own even without Lerner and Loewe’s “loverly” score. That the cherished classic hold up beautifully even with a healthy dose of cross-dressing-double casting and an unorthodox, if expediently workable staging by the always adventurous Off Broadway Bedlam company. This staging, under the direction of Eric Tucker, attests to the work’s inexhaustible ability to charm.

Once my eyes and my preconceived sense of artistic design made peace with John McDermott’s close to thread-bare setting - an arrangement of chairs and a table or two among a collection of noncollectable artifacts - I found myself having a ripping good time. The play begins it romp through the Shavian terrain in the vestibule of the theater where the audience stands among the players and listens to the opening scene that takes place on the street of London's Covent Garden.

Soon enough we are ushered into the seating section that is on three sides of the playing area in the Sheen Center where you are as likely as I was, to be smitten by the spunky, cockney Eliza (Vaishnavi Sharma) who speaks with a decidedly Indian twist, her self-absorbed mentor Professor Henry Higgins (Eric Tucker), his sportingly supportive associate Colonel Pickering (Nigel Gore) and eventually the irresistibly wily Alfred P. Doolittle (Rajesh Bose.)

The casting blithely brings to the fore the  British colonialism that is alluded to in the original text but often dismissed. And the subsequent surprises that pop up regarding the appearance of others in the play shall not be spoiled by me as they provide laughter where you might not have reason to expect it.

Tucker is splendidly disagreeable and opportunistic as Higgins, the insensitive, emotionally remote chauvinist whose heartlessly linguistic instructions are the engine of the plot. The Delhi-born Sharma makes the stunning transformation from flower  girl into duchess with a neo-feminist claim while still reminding us she is a chip off Doolittle’s block. Bose brings a craftily debonair quality to Doolittle while Gore’s Pickering endures by being endearing.

The best laughs are earned by Edmund Lewis who portrays Mrs. Higgins as a softly admonishing battleaxe and in the same scene as the unsuitable suitor Freddy Eynsford-Hill (Don’t ask). Be prepared for some chapeau-swapping and a kind of musical chairs in this staging’s most loony moments. Not lost among the more gregarious of her play-mates is Annabel Capper as the no-nonsense Mrs. Pearce who doubles in more nonsensical ways as Clara Eynsford-Hill and a parlor maid. Perhaps not the most respectful of “Pygmalions” you are apt to see in a lifetime, but the Bedlam version is surely making Shaw smile down upon it, even probably against his own will.  

“Angels in America” (through May 31, 2018) at the Neil Simon Theatre, 250 west 52nd Street

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Nathan Lane
Photo: Brinkhoff & Mogenburg

New York is the recipient of the stunning and superb revival of the two-part masterpiece “Angels in America” from London where Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play actually began a quarter century ago and a year before it took Broadway by storm in 1993. Repeating their roles in this glorious new National Theater production are Nathan Lane as Roy Cohen and Andrew Garfield as Prior Walter. The king-size play is being presented as a unit with its two lengthy parts presented in consecutive evenings or with a matinee and evening option. “Millennium Approaches” is the first part of this massive work subtitled “A Gay Fantasia on National Themes.”

The best news is that “Angels...” has landed with its wings intact. It is a seven-hour, epic-scaled play that uses the AIDS epidemic as a defining metaphor for the eroding of our country’s moral, spiritual and ethical postures during the 1980’s. There is, at the end of the first three and one-half hours (including two intermissions) a feeling that a remarkably stirring and unconventional theatrical experience is passionately and purposefully unfolding. Whether or not you have seen the play as produced in 2003 as a mini-series by HBO, the excellent Off Broadway revival in 2010 or even perhaps even the opera,  the original play, however slightly tweaked over the years by Kushner, remains a must-see dramatic event.

It is a huge, impressive endeavor upon which Kushner has implanted much that is skilled and much that is soulful. Tarnished only slightly by a somewhat archetypal embrace of characters and situations, it vehemently condemns the collectively biased course that our nation took during the Reagan-Bush era. How the play translates and illuminates its message in today’s polarized political landscape is all too terrifyingly clear.

Episodic, but not fragmented, “Angels...” revolves around the fatefully integrated lives of five principal characters. Each in his or her own way is either discomforted, disenfranchised or disillusioned. The characters include a gay couple, one of whom is dying of AIDS, a repressed homosexual Mormon Republican lawyer, his hallucinating agoraphobic wife, and Roy Cohen, the opportunistic closeted homosexual lawyer. All plummet through the plays’ social, political and psychological mayhem as well as expediently through set designer Ian MacNeil’s impressive neon framed mobile settings.

Both parts of “Angels in America” have a wildly unconventional, part-real-part-fantasy, part-farce - structure that not only stretches previously prescribed dramatic boundaries, but also gives its characters room to coexist in unorthodox counterpoint to each other.

Marianne Elliott’s splendid direction unleashes an exhilarating freedom of expressiveness in each interlocking scene, as well as within each of the extraordinary actors, many of whom double, triple and quadruple their roles. In this regard, Denise Gough, Susan Brown, and Amanda Lawrence stand out for their multiple excursions.

Given Kushner’s penchant for broad and brash humor, many of the roles are vitally charged with large doses of vitriol, vinegar and especially in the case of Cohen, a distinctly vituperative sleaziness. Lane is to put it mildly, spectacularly brilliant as Cohen, the abrasive, abusive McCarthyite who attempts to further the career of his protégé Joseph Pitt (Lee Pace) a guilt-ridden Mormon and a Justice Department lawyer. Pitt’s personal problems are not only standing in his way up the political ladder, they are seen infecting the behavior of his neglected, valium-addicted wife Harper. Harper is given a memorable state of poignant disorientation by Gough.  

But at the heart of the play lies the painful, imploding relationship of Louis (James McArdle), a Jewish clerk and Prior (Garfield) his dying WASP cross-dressing lover. Although we see the tortured-by-his-desertion Louis wearing his conscience on his sleeve it is the ravaged cloak of impending death worn on the frail shoulders of the heart-breaking Prior, that prepares us for the emotionally explosive finale of Part I, the arrival through a shattering ozone layer of the winged messenger Angel (Amanda Lawrence). “Isn’t this a little too Stephen Spielberg?” asks the frightened Prior, who has already had visitations from deceased relatives.

“Perestroika” (Part II) concludes with a fantastical and prophetic pilgrimage: one taken by the heart, produced by the mind, and guided by the soul of Prior Walter, the play’s protagonist. Never preachy, almost always funnier than you would expect, the play’s message of a new dawn basks in the light of earthly reality.

The shifting relationships of the characters we first met in Part I continue to shock, astound, baffle and amuse us. But now these left and right wingers, the straights and the gays are on the verge of resolving their dilemmas. Except for the epilogue, the action unfolds in New York City in 1986 and follows Prior’s newly prescribed destiny as an unlikely, if noticeably unwilling, prophet of his age.

Dying but spiritually evolving, Prior is driven by a desire to live. He challenges the directives of the descended Angel who has just appointed him a prophet. Allowed a distinct temperament, Lawrence portrays the winged messenger with a playfully feisty attitude. Ascending in a dizzying dream to heaven - a scene that wryly recalls Dorothy’s trip to Oz - Prior takes his case before an entire council of angels. It is thrilling to watch this amazing cast explore the depths and desires of their unforgettable characters. And Elliott’s  upward and onward  direction is no less dynamic in its course than is Kushner’s astounding text.

“Perestroika” doesn’t depend on restraint. It relies on the wisdom of wit and comic intrusions. When it comes to laughs, it shames many recent so-called comedies. A bold sexual coupling might begin on an erotic note, but ends humorously in a crescendo of harmonic discord. Given a rafter-shaking resonance by Lane, Cohen’s virulent tirades, even at the moment of his death, defines his self-immortalizing gall.

Some characters who seemed fragmented in Part I become more important in Part II. The former drag queen Belize (a terrific Nathan Stewart-Jarrett) is Cohn’s no-nonsense nurse and Joe Pitt’s mother (Susan Brown) a devout Mormon finds an unexpected resurgence of her real self and of her faith as she unwittingly becomes an inspiration to Prior. Inspired is the only word to describe this wondrously theatrical double-header that reveals the scarred core of this world and a sacred corner of the next.

“Twelfth Night, or What You Will” Opened December 14 at Classic Stage Company

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 The Fiasco Players  Photo: Joan Marcus

There is not a better way to celebrate the holidays than a visit to the Classic Stage Company where they are hosting the Fiasco Theater’s entertaining and very funny production of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night, or What You Will.” If you are wondering what play to introduce your child to the Bard right now, this one is it.

Every now and then there is that rare confluence of conception, acting, directing, and in this instance a lot of extra songs and (with no apologies) silly cavorting that adds up to sheer pleasure for two and one half hours. We have heard for years from contrarian Bardologists how this is arguably either a perfect comedy and also one of Shakespeare’s weaker plays. How about just letting it stand now forever as his best and most appealing to all ages and generations.

Notwithstanding the sublime imported production from the Globe Shakespeare Company with Mark Rylance in 2013 (playing Olivia) this more modestly staged but even more immodestly performed production has beautifully addressed the play’s outrageously convoluted plotting and considered the bountiful mix of tomfoolery and romance in a most delightful way.  

Here is a totally disarmingly staging with only a few props and set pieces, actors who not only sing and dance but play musical instruments. This staging is filled to the brim with the kind of boldly comical conceits that are allowed to take precedence over the issues of sexual identity that can sometimes smother our pleasure. That’s a good thing for those of us who are more apt to welcome the antics of the secondary characters over the plight of the principals.

Just to refresh your memory: The courting of wealthy and titled Lady Olivia by the personable but dull Duke Orsino of Illyria becomes complicated by the arrival of Viola, a young girl who masquerades as a page to the duped Duke after a traumatic separation from her twin Sebastian during a violent storm at sea. Viola unwittingly falls in love with the Duke only to discover that Olivia has fallen head over heels in love with her as Cesario, the page. The arrival of look-alike Sebastian to Ilyria, who, instantly smitten with ardor upon seeing the fair Olivia, adds another layer of burlesque to a comedy already over-layered with “what you will.”

If Shakespeare’s delightful crew of secondary characters is usually encouraged to run amuck in order to confuse us as well as the lovers, they suddenly seem to have inherited an importantly comedic weight. Arguably strained and incredulous, the story nevertheless, seems to benefit from the co-direction by Noah Brody and Ben Steinfeld. This is not to imply that the sentiments of the play have been forfeited for the sake of the silliness that now seems to pervade the action. Those who savor the former will also be rewarded.

That suave sentimentalist Duke Orsino is winningly played by the co-director Brody. Traditionally the Duke is remembered best for his brief yearnings for the love of Lady Olivia (played with an appealing vibrancy by Fiasco co-artistic director Jessie Austrian.) Orsino is mostly troubled by his attraction to Viola/Cesario (a wonderfully spunky Emily Young) an issue that adds a dimension to his conflicted personality. It is no small feat that Young makes as good an impression as a woman as she does in the guise of a man. Her sweet but commanding acting style is a cause for celebration. As Sebastian, Javier Ignacio may not get as much stage time as her twin but he gives us a robust account of an easily provoked and more easily infatuated young man.

Most happily, the antics appear organic to the broadly comical artistry displayed by Andy Grotelueschen  as a wild-haired and bearded Sir Toby Belch and Paco Tolson,  as his dim-witted but amusingly dapper sidekick Sir Andrew Aguecheek. Paul L. Coffey projects just the right amount of deplorable arrogance as the maligned "affectionate ass" Malvolio. This, as he succumbs to the unkind plot machinations as devised by the clever servant Maria, lustily played by Tina Chilip, making her Fiasco debut. There’s no fool like a glib fool (“Better a witty fool than a foolish wit”) and Ben Steinfeld’s disarming Feste is a feast.

The costume designer Emily Rebholz outfits the company in humorously contemporary casual. Viola and Sebastian in twin brown fisherman knit sweaters. How cool is that? The directors have taken what is naturally strained and equally incredulous in Shakespeare to heart. But they take Shakespeare’s mixture of parody and poignancy just one or two steps farther into the realm of sidesplitting bliss. . .all to the good and all for our merriment.

“Twelfth Night, or What You Will” Opened December 14 at Classic Stage Company, 136 East 13th Street Ends January 6, 2018